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if i create something and make millions, billions, trillions by the product or idea, and you are a bum, that is your fault. i took chances, failed and tried again. i could have become a victim but i didnt. i got up dusted my pants off and tried again. not everyone can be rich, or even wealth. it has never happened and never will.
No see your mommy hugged you enough so that you can do this. But some people need their hand held and then still can't do it so they hold out their hand while you get to take it up the....
You cannot un-victim a victim, there is always an excuse.
If we sit down for pie and there are 8 pieces and I eat 7 and leave 1 for you, that might be a problem if there is just one pie. The last pie on the planet.
If I bake a pie for myself and you decide you want a piece and I point you to the pantry and tell you all the ingredients are right there and to bake your own damn pie, I'm not going to lose any sleep if you didn't get any pie. Especially when we have spent $17 trillion dollars since 1965 teaching you how to bake pie.
It seems to me that we are confusing two separate issues. Yes, there is too much welfare and abuse in this country. We make it possible for people to not work and be able to survive. There are too many folks on welfare who are scamming the system. I completely agree.
There are also too many laws governing everyday people. And we are now using tax laws to control people and influence their choices when taxes should only be used to generate income. Agreed there too.
However we need to realize that we are also handing over control of our country to the corporations and allowing ourselves to be enslaved. To continue to stick our heads in the sand and say there is no problem, just not hard enough workers is naive at best. We, everyday normal people, don't make the laws anymore, lobbyists do. And when that happens we start to loose our liberties.
I bolded the word "now" above to note that we have been using the tax laws to guide behavior almost as long as there have been tax laws.
Giving a deduction for dependents encourages dependents; giving a mortgage deduction encourages mortgages. We from time-to-time have given energy credits for installation of solar and wind; and installation of energy star boilers, windows and insulation. The purpose was precisely to change behavior. Instead of expressing this as something bad it is actually good public policy.
On your last point about denying that there is a problem, you are right. The U.S. has one of the worst instances of income inequality and class mobility in the developed world -- and the right pretends it does not exist or admits it does exist but argues it is normal. You can see this in Princeton professor (and the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers), Alan Krueger's, Great Gatsby Curve:
The U.S. has one of the worst instances of income inequality and class mobility in the developed world
The U.S. also has the most progressive tax system.
As such, it's in the U.S. Government's best interest to encourage and promote as much of an income gap as possible. The government has a HUGE incentive to keep the top 1%'s share of income as high as possible as they're the federal income tax revenue cash cows. They pay the highest tax rates AND the highest tax dollar revenues. Tax revenue shrinks without them and their income.
The U.S. also has the most progressive tax system.
As such, it's in the U.S. Government's best interest to encourage and promote as much of an income gap as possible. The government has a HUGE incentive to keep the top 1%'s share of income as high as possible as they're the federal income tax revenue cash cows. They pay the highest tax rates AND the highest tax dollar revenues. Tax revenue shrinks without them and their income.
Repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again doesn't make it any more true.
Why you have latched on to that one very poorly bit of "journalistic" analysis is beyond me because it is very limited on how it measures progressive versus regressive and doesn't take spending programs into consideration.
Again, it's bad and false, and trotting it out numerous times doesn't make it any less so.
Repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again doesn't make it any more true.
Why you have latched on to that one very poorly bit of "journalistic" analysis is beyond me because it is very limited on how it measures...
Not so much... It's not a journalistic analysis.
"The most comprehensive scholarly work on this question to date comes from sociologists, Monica Prasad and YingYing Deng, who use data on individual incomes to calculate total tax burdens at different levels of the income distribution."
You're just upset because the data doesn't match your ideology.
As such, it's in the U.S. Government's best interest to encourage and promote as much of an income gap as possible. The government has a HUGE incentive to keep the top 1%'s share of income as high as possible as they're the federal income tax revenue cash cows. They pay the highest tax rates AND the highest tax dollar revenues. Tax revenue shrinks without them and their income.
I don't think you are factoring in political instability. Inequality will foster instability, which is a very real and predictable outcome.
Plus - its hard to read how they are noting "progressive" i.e. what defines income and in what country?
By any measure a progressive tax system would have someone like Romney paying 60-70% of income instead of 15%. By playing with the word "income" you may create the illusion of progressive taxes. . .but I would think a progressive tax system (noted by most people to be fair) would have the percentage climbing of income as you go to the top. Maybe maxing out at near 60-80% of income?
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But some people need their hand held and then still can't do it so they hold out their hand while you get to take it up the....
